18 Intelligence Agencies!
So Much Intel, So Little Insight
Yes, it’s staggering. The U.S. government has eighteen intelligence agencies—euphemistically known as the IC or the intelligence community. Interestingly, the infamous DOGE, searching for government efficiency, never challenged that “community.”
And that “community” doesn’t come cheap. Courtesy of my AI friends, here’s a rough budget breakdown:
National Intelligence Program (NIP) $81.9 billion, Director of National Intelligence (DNI)
Military Intelligence Program (MIP) $33.6 billion, Department of Defense (DoD)
Total Requested Funding $115.5 billion
The true figure is probably higher and also classified. So many “black ops” and black op sites. Nothing screams transparency like black programs.
I won’t bore you with the list of all 18 agencies. I wonder if there might be some overlap, redundancies, inefficiencies, and bloat? Of course not. Even if there was, surely it would be classified.
I once worked a bit with AIA, the air intelligence agency, but that’s the extent of my limited exposure to the IC. Lucky me.
The IC generates an enormous amount of intel but insight remains limited. You don’t always get what you pay for.
And, let’s be honest. As international lawyer John Whitbeck put it: “I often wonder why the United States needs 18 hugely expensive and massively staffed ‘intelligence’ agencies when all of the country's most important decisions are made at the unconstrained whim of a single individual of no intelligence whatsoever.”
(I do like the rumors that President Trump only pays attention to intelligence briefings when his name is featured prominently. It’s Trump in a nutshell.)
In keeping with a five-sided Pentagon, America should probably have five intelligence agencies, as follows: the CIA, NSA, DIA, DOJ/FBI, and DHS. All others could be folded under those five.
Not that I’m a fan of the CIA etc. These agencies have far too much power (and resources) in our society.
Efficiency is less important than effectiveness, and based on recent events (e.g. disastrous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran) the IC doesn’t seem that effective. Unless you define “effective” as enlarging its own power. In that sense, the IC is superb at protecting and enlarging its own turf.
The whole IC is antithetical to democracy and the idea of oversight being exercised by the people. The “community” should be as small as possible and as focused as possible on protecting Americans from real threats, rather than protecting itself from budgetary cuts.
Amazingly, something like 1.3 million Americans hold a “top secret” clearance, and the IC itself taps into a far-flung network of private contractors and related organizations. To say that it’s everywhere may be only a slight exaggeration.
As Chuck Schumer once said, the IC has “six ways from Sunday” of screwing with anyone who gets in their way. So I’d like to conclude by saying I love the IC. I really do!
Bill, not to worry.
If the NDAA (with Section 219) passes, we'll just have one: Mossad
“The IC generates an enormous amount of intel but insight remains limited. You don’t always get what you pay for.”
“The whole IC is antithetical to democracy and the idea of oversight being exercised by the people.”
I am wont to draw upon movie scripts to illustrate. Two come to mind here, the first from the 2006 James Bond movie “Casino Royale,” in the scene where Bond (Daniel Craig) and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, woo-hoo!) first meet on the train. I think these lines of hers in that scene are underappreciated:
Vesper – “And since your first thought about me ran to 'orphan' that’s what I’d say you are. Oh, you are… And that makes perfect sense since MI6 looks for maladjusted young men that give little thought to sacrificing others in order to protect Queen and country. You know former SAS types with easy smiles and expensive watches. Rolex?”
Bond – “Omega.”
Vesper – “Beautiful.”
And this one from further back, 1975’s “Three Days of the Condor”:
Mr. Wabash (John Houseman): “Why aren't you further along?”
Higgins (Cliff Robertson): “With the Company, sir?”
Wabash: “You seem perfect for it. Are you perfect for it, Mr. Higgins?”
Higgins: “I try to be, sir.”
Wabash: “You were recruited out of school?”
Higgins: “No, interviewed in Korea. You served with Colonel Donovan in the OSS?”
Wabash: “I sailed the Adriatic with a movie star at the helm. It doesn't seem like much of a war now, but it was. I go even further back than that. Ten years after the Great War, as we used to call it, before we knew enough to number them.”
Now these are drawn from fiction, but in turn based on some realities, namely that the “IC” goes way back, and it is staffed with more than its fair share of ideologically driven psycho- and sociopaths, from the upper reaches of the political and economic establishment. The Dulles brothers (see Stephen Kinzer’s “The Brothers”) are prime examples: Kennedy was smart and bold enough to fire Allen as Director of the CIA after the Bay of Pigs disaster, and it’s a national embarrassment that the airport outside Washington, DC is named after his older brother John Foster, Secy of State under Eisenhower. The airport might well have been named after Oliver North for that matter (and bad enough that the non-partisan National Airport in DC was renamed after Reagan, God bless the cult-worshiping hearts of the Republicans, if they had any).
That there are eighteen(!) known(!) intelligence agencies is disturbing enough, but that also only hints at the pervasiveness of the intelligence juggernaut. It’s infiltrations into academia, into industry, into the arts and culture (e.g, the “Paris Review”) give a hint at the depth and breadth of the intelligence, surveillance, propaganda, and even clandestine enforcement arm of The Empire.
That line from another movie (and book), “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller, “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you,” isn’t there just for laughs.